Water

Croatian and international environmental organisations (more than 30 of them) have today (26. October 2011.) called on the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development not to go ahead with a planned EUR 123 million loan for the Ombla hydropower plant near Dubrovnik in Croatia, due to be approved by the bank's Board of Directors on 8th November

Through the Water and Ecosystems Programme, the Dutch government supports the implementation of the Framework Agreement by providing technical assistance to the establishment of a Sava Basin Commission and by supporting the elaboration of an Integrated River Basin Management Plan.

The project is done in cooperation with the OSCE, UNITAR (United Nations Institute for Training and Research) and REC (The Regional Environmental Center) COs. The workshops were organized in all countries on: "Ensuring the quality and quantity of fresh water in the Sava River Basin", which all took in 2005

The main objective of this project is to provide local authorities, governments, stakeholders, decision-makers, experts and site owners in the Sava River Basin countries with decision-support tools for the sustainable management of the river basin resources.

WWF, in support of its local partner the Drava League, has requested the Croatian Waters Company and its governing body the State Water Authority, to halt immediately the river regulation works, and the combined large scale extraction of river gravels directly from the riverbed, being carried out on the Stara Drava (’Old Drava’) upstream of the city of Varazdin.

The meeting was based on the recent discussions and developments on ministry and NGO (WWF, Drava League, Green Action, Drava Federation, DOOPS-Birdlife Slovenia, Euronatur) level, regarding the future protection and management of the transboundary Drava and Mura Rivers.

Otter survey on Lika river is part of the Green Belt Velebit Project - a joint Green Action and WWF initiative for the long-term conservation and rural development of the large karst landscape system comprising the river basins of Lika, Gacka and Krbava, the Velebit mountain range and the sea channel where the system’s underground streams re-emerge.

The Zagreb Central Wastewater Treatment Plant (CWWTP), which is currently under construction, is supposed to address the fact that Zagreb currently has no wastewater treatment facilities for its 900,000 inhabitants, and wastewater passes directly into the Sava River.

The Zagreb Solid Waste Management Programme, carried out by a city-owned company called ZGOS and mainly funded by the EBRD, comprises the rehabilitation of Zagreb’s Jakuševec landfill site, which is widely reported to be the largest illegal landfill in Central and Eastern Europe.

Between Varazdin and the Slovenian border, Croatian Water Authorities are turning the living river into a concrete canal, closing off its meanders and side branches, and extracting large quantities of gravel directly from the riverbed and banks.